Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [166]
They had very mobile faces. The king looked at the queen tenderly.
“Our host told me that one morning he found the blue youth, who had escaped somehow from his prison, attempting to break the seal of the maiden’s vessel...But he was out of his element, could not breathe, and they saved him just in time, returning him to his liquid.”
“Terrible,” Diotallevi said. “I wouldn’t want such a responsibility. You’d have to take the vessels with you everywhere and find all that manure wherever you went. And then what would you do in the summer, on vacation? Leave them with the doorman? ‘‘
“But perhaps,” Aglie concluded, “they are only Cartesian imps. Or automata.”
“The devil!” Garamond said. “Dr. Aglie, you’re opening a whole new universe to me. We should all be more humble, my dear friends. There are more things in heaven and earth...But, after all, a la guerre comme a la guerre...”
Garamond was awestruck; Diotallevi maintained an expression of cynical curiosity; Belbo showed no feeling at all.
To dispel my doubt, I said to him, “Too bad Lorenza didn’t come; she would have loved this.”
“Mm, yes,” he replied absently.
So Lorenza hadn’t come.
And I was the way Amparo had been in Rio. I was ill. I felt somehow cheated. They hadn’t brought me the agogo.
I left the group and went back into the building, picking my way through the crowd. I passed the buffet, drank something cool, though I was afraid it might contain a philter. I looked for a bathroom, to splash cold water on my temples and neck. This accomplished, I again felt better. But as I came out, I saw a circular staircase and, suddenly curious, I was unable to resist the new adventure. Perhaps, even though I thought I had recovered, I was still looking for Lorenza.
60
Poor idiot! Are you so foolish as to believe we will openly teach you the greatest and most important of secrets? I assure you that anyone who attempts to study, according to the ordinary and literal sense of their words, what the Hermetic Philosophers write, will soon find himself in the twists of a labyrinth from which he will be unable to escape, having no Ariadne’s thread to lead him out.
—Artephius
Descending, I came to a room below the ground, dimly lighted, with walls in rocaille like those of fountains in a park. In one corner I saw an opening like the bell of a trumpet. I heard sounds coming from it. When I approached, the sounds became more distinct, until I could catch sentences, as clear and precise as if they were being uttered at my side. An Ear of Dionysius! Evidently the ear communicated with one of the upper rooms, picking up the conversation of those who stood near its aperture.
“Signora, I’ll tell you something I’ve never told anyone else. I’m tired...I’ve worked with cinnabar, with mercury, I sublimated spirits, did distillations with salts of iron, fermentations, and still I haven’t found the Stone. I prepared strong waters, corrosive waters, burning waters, all in vain. I used eggshells, sulfur, vitriol, arsenic, sal ammoniac, quartz, alkalis, oxides of rock, saltpeter, soda, salt of tartar, and potash alum. Believe me, do not trust them, avoid the imperfect metals; otherwise you will be deceived, as I was deceived. I tried everything: blood, hair, the soul of Saturn, marcasites, aes ustum, saffron of Mars, tincture of iron, litharge, antimony. To no avail. I extracted water from silver, calcified silver both with and without salt, and using aqua vitae I extracted corrosive oils. I employed milk, wine, curds, the sperm of the stars which falls to earth, chelidon, placentas, ashes, even...”
“Even...?”
“Signora, there’s nothing in this world that demands more caution than the truth. To tell the truth is like leeching one’s own heart...”
“Enough, enough! You’ve got me all excited.”
“I dare confess my secret only to you. I am of no place and no era. Beyond time and space, I live my eternal existence. There are beings who